A touch of Stone
by Delta Hooves
Summary: Upon discovering a Church within London, 4 teenagers decide to explore it's contents, little did they know that as little as a blink will cost their lives.


**A touch of Stone**

The smooth wind, the downpour of rain, the ice-cold air, all of these had had made me constantly shiver as I walked down through the stone peppered church graveyard of West Street Avenue. What had been a milk run of graveyard exploration had quickly turned into a rapid dash to the shelter the church had provided. "So Michael, this exploration been worth the shower we got when we got here?" The church's abandoned hallways had echoed with my friend's, Steve Jacobs, remark, to which I replied an all but too common response; "Ah shut yer trap Steve. I ain't a weatherman!"

The church itself looked more like a tomb than the graves outside that resembled one, dust layered every piece of perfectly hand crafted wood like a layer of sweat on a runner's heated brow. The walls and roof had almost resembled Swiss cheese with the amount of holes in them, caused a draft, but we could hardly complain. A shelter was a shelter and an abandoned church was… well… almost still a church. But none of these problems had been seen by us as realisation had hit us. "Oh Brandon' we've hit the jackpot here! Why didn't we come in here before?" My other friend, David Geoff, had asked in bewilderment of the church, it was completely unexplored for years, possibly even decades. But I knew the reason, so I answered his question; "Well Geoff, I take it you didn't notice the dozen signs on the gate saying; "Unsafe structure"?"

I may have been an explorer of these 'no-go' zones all over Glasgow but I was a cautious one, David had only given a chuckle to question. I couldn't blame him though, heck, I could hardly blame any of us; we weren't qualified in any way, we were just four 17 year olds with almost nothing to do. But we didn't need qualifications, we had experience and within a few minutes, we were almost tactically placed in the church, Steve, in the spire keeping an eye out for any gangs who had the same idea we did, David searched the main hall, Steve's sister, Sarah Jacobs checked the third floor and service rooms on the ground floor while I searched the second floor. Little did I know what I was about to encounter.

"C'mon, ya stupid, bloody, piece of-whoa!" I was cut short of my curse as the door I pressed myself against suddenly gave way, sending me flying into a room. With a groan I pushed myself off the dusty floor and what my eyes had saw was something I never expected… for in a way, I was not alone in the room. "What the hell?" I asked myself as I gazed upon 4 stone statues all of which were angels who appeared to be weeping. As I gazed upon each statue, a shimmer on the third statue caught my eye, it was wearing something. I came closer, hypnotised in wonder as I gazed at the golden ring on one of it's held out hands. It almost seemed too easy, like it wanted me to take it, like it was cheese in a mouse trap; I gently took it in my fingers and with a sharp pull, pulled it from the angel's grasp. I hesitated as I slowly stepped back towards the door taking one long last look at the statue and as I turned around to turn the corner, I could have sworn I saw the statue's hands move because I can see in the reflection on a fallen mirror of a statue with it's hands on it's face, weeping away with silent sobs, but I quickly dismissed it as a mistake because it must have been one of the other 3 statues, little did I know how wrong I was.

"Guys, where are ya? I found something." I called out into the hallway as I came down the stone stairwell leading to it, but all I received in return was silence. I slowly walked down between the rows of benches once used to pray for their lord, scanning around looking for the others, on the guard for a prank that would possibly come but as I reached the massive organ I had received none, I turned around to the way I came, but something caught my eye, for on the second floor balcony there was a spot of grey and as I looked closer, I saw that it was another statue, similar to the ones I found on the second floor, but realisation had then hit me like a ton of bricks, that statue was not there when we came in I stared at the somewhat 'spectator' for a few moments as thoughts raced through my mind, was I going crazy or was this statue following me, stalking me, hunting me-?

"Hey Michael, if that's you then get up here! You're gonna want to see this!" The sudden feminine call from above and behind me had caught me off guard; instinctively I turned towards the sound but quickly turned back towards the statue, only to find that somehow, it was no longer there. This was getting scary, so without further hesitation, I snapped around and made a run for Sarah, if there was something in this church hunting us, I would at least be there for her, that and I was curious as to what she found.

"There ya are, hey check this out, apparently this guy was having an interview but I can't hear the interviewer, still, I think you'll like this." Sarah explained as I entered the conference room she was in, there was a television with a man in it, but this man was one I recognised. He had been rumoured about all over forums on the internet, as Sarah played the video, I sat down in front of the television and pointed out; "Hey that looks like the Doctor-" "Yup that's me." … I'm sorry did the television just answer me?

"Ok that was freaky, did he just answer me?" I asked in bewilderment of what was happening before my eyes and almost immediately he replied again. "Pretty much."

"What? How are you doing that?! C-can you hear me?"

"Well I can't but I do know what you're going to say, despite the fact you're 41 years ahead of me and before you ask how; look to your left." And with that I looked to my left and saw Sarah writing. She was writing a transcript, the Doctor must have received it after this! With that realisation I looked back to the screen. "Ok listen; you don't have much time. The Angels are coming, you have to stop them."

"Angels? You mean those statues?"

"Creatures from another world."

"No, that can't be right, they're just statues."

"Only when you see them, no one quite knows where they came from, but they're as old as the universe, or very nearly, and they have survived this long because they have the most perfect defence system ever evolved. They are quantum-locked. They don't exist when they're being observed. The moment they are seen by any other living creature, they freeze into rock. They literately turn to stone! And you can't kill a stone. Of course, a stone can't kill you either. But then you turn your head away, then you blink, and oh yes it can." As we heard this detailed warning I seen a shade of grey catch my eye, I looked up to see a pair of angels in a corridor behind the television, oh god, they found us! "Sarah, don't take your eyes off those things." I warned as she stared in terror at the stationary predators that were waiting to pounce.

"That's why they cover their eyes, they can't risk looking at each other, they have to see where they go but cannot see each other. Their greatest asset is their greatest curse. That's it, I'm afraid, there's no more from you on the transcript but listen carefully, your life can depend on this: Don't blink. Don't even blink! They are FAST, faster than you can ever imagine! DON'T turn your back! DON'T look away, and DON'T BLINK! … Good luck." And with that the screen froze, the video had stopped. At that moment Sarah had crouched down and turned off the television as I stood up.

"Well fat, lot of help that was, he didn't even tell us how to stop them." I could only nod in a reply but then it hit me: "Sarah… you're not looking at the statues." And that was when it hit her as she looked at me as she stood up with widened eyes. "Neither are you." And with that reply we both looked to where the angels stood only to find they weren't 3 meters away anymore; they had their arms outstretched, mouths open revealing an array of sharp stone teeth and were practically only 3 inches away!

With a startled yelp, we both backed away to the door eyes widened, not even daring to blink. "It's ok, it's ok, there's just two of them, we're ok." Sarah said to herself in attempt to calm herself down, shame I had to break the news.

"There's 2 more."

"There's 4 of the blighters!?"

"Yeah, they should still be on the second floor but it's been a while, ok we need to get out this room. Just don't blink."

"Why would I? I'm too scared to blink." She admitted as I gently held her shoulders and backed her up to the door but then a realisation came again. "Ok we can't both open the door without taking our eyes off those things so I'll keep an eye on them, you get the door." I instructed as I took over the watch of the angels, stepped closer to them and with a nod she when behind me and started to open the heavy wooden door, but as she opened it, I heard her shriek in terror, causing me to instinctively look towards her direction, but almost immediately remembered my task at hand and rapidly turned back around, to find that the angels were now right up in my face, their stone claws almost grasping my neck as it laid outstretched in horror, we both took a step back and were now back to back.

"M-Michael? T-there's two more back here." She stuttered out, petrified at the sudden jump-scare. We were now back to back, surrounded by angels of stone and would both die within the blink of an eye, literately. But then from the shadows of doom came a light of hope, I remembered what the Doctor said: "_They can't risk looking at each other_…" I had an idea.

"Sarah, listen, on the count of 3 we need to blink and drop down, ok?" I told her, but this somewhat plan seemed more like a suicide mission to her, which was confirmed by he reply; "What?! Are you nuts!? They'll kill us if we blink!"

"They'll kill us anyway if we stay here, Sarah we can't keep staring at them forever, do you trust me?"

"Y-yeah." She stuttered out her reply after the small argument as she grasped my hand tightly, here we go. "Ok, one… two… THREE!" And with a sudden blink we fell on our backsides, clenching our eyes shut. Seconds passed, ironic really; just a few seconds ago, we were scared to close them but now we were almost too terrified to open them. But after a few seconds I slowly opened my eyes to see the angels hadn't moved but all were now looking at each other. "It worked, they're looking at each other, they won't ever move again we did it!" I yelled out in celebration as we both rejoiced in joy, we were still alive. And with that we both left the church without even bothering to look back, well, two of us anyway.

As I write this I am standing over the graves of our dear friends and in Sarah's case family. To this day the events of the church had stayed with us in our memories, in our dreams, most were bad but one good realisation had shone through, it made me and Sarah realise just how much we cared for each other. Darn, that reminds me, I'll have to cut this story short, I forgot we were going on a date tonight. So yeah, this is Michael Brandon, signing off. USER OFFLINE.

_It's been ten years…_

_You start to forget, the things you should remember…_

_But you can't stop remembering, the things you should forget…_

_We always thought we had the upper hand in life, not anymore…_

_All we have is each other…_

Dean McKellar 5P2


End file.
